


Pelagius

by glitterburn (orphan_account)



Category: Van Helsing (2004)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-01-03
Updated: 2010-01-03
Packaged: 2017-10-05 17:33:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/44259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/glitterburn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A pooka attacks the Vatican in its attempt to retrieve an ancient manuscript.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pelagius

"Jinette!"

I sat up in my cot and listened as the eerie cry echoed through the corridors.

"Jinette!"

I could hear movement and muttered curses from the cells on either side of mine, but nobody seemed to want to get up and look for whoever – or whatever – it was that was making such a dreadful racket.

"Jinette!"

"Oh, bloody hell," I sighed. I kicked off the thin linen sheets and swung my legs from the bed, exclaiming at the cold as my bare feet touched the stone flags of the floor. Stumbling in the dark, I managed to locate my sandals and shoved my feet into them even as I grabbed at my cassock and pulled it over my head. I couldn't find the length of rope that girdled my habit, and as the cry was continuing unabated and was in fact getting louder, I decided that it probably wouldn't matter if I were seen running about the Vatican improperly dressed.

I pushed open the door to my cell and stepped out into the corridor. As soon as my colleagues heard my footsteps, they crowded to their doors and peered out, calling to me: "What is it? Carl! Is it a soul in torment?"

I was a bit irritated that they should be asking me such questions when I'd only just got out of bed, but then I was almost used to it. Ever since I'd become Gabriel Van Helsing's right-hand man and confessor – at least, I imagine I'm supposed to be his confessor, even though I'm only a friar – I'd found myself in some pretty sticky situations, most of which I could have avoided by the simple expedient of staying in the Vatican laboratories.

However, Van Helsing never listens to my protests of not being a field man, so I end up alongside him confronting an array of demons and monsters and goodness-knows-what-else. Luckily God has been with us in our work, and we have escaped serious injury.

Or at least we've escaped serious injury so far.

I try to be optimistic but there is a theory about the law of averages that causes me some anxiety. I tell myself that Gabriel used to be an archangel. It doesn't help.

Anyway, my laboratory colleagues seem to look upon me as some sort of expert on the demonic, and so now, with the echoing cry still sounding around us, they naturally turned to me to provide an answer.

Chen, my Buddhist colleague, stuck his head out from his door. "Why does it call for Cardinal Jinette?" he asked, wide-eyed. "Is it a spirit that His Eminence has wronged?"

"Goodness me. I hope not!"

Suddenly, above the cry, we heard another, terrifying noise: a thunder of feet, loud and impatient, and then a hammering on the door at the end of our dormitory corridor.

"Allah save us!" exclaimed Nuri, my Moslem colleague; and several of the other monks started praying loudly to whatever deity they followed. Chen disappeared back into the safety of his cell, and I admit that I had second thoughts about standing in the corridor like that.

The hammering grew louder, and then the door opened and banged against the wall. A huge shadow loomed in the doorway, holding aloft a torch that dripped fire.

"'Tis a demon!" wailed one of my colleagues.

"No, it's not," I said with a sigh. "It's Van Helsing."

* * *

"You know, you really shouldn't be living amongst that superstitious lot," Gabriel commented as he strode through the great arched hallways and parlours of the Vatican. "They'll affect your judgement. Jinette would move you, if you requested it. You could move closer to my rooms."

I tried to keep up with him. Van Helsing has very long legs. "Yes, that's all very well, but first of all, they're not superstitious, they're my friends; and secondly, your rooms are miles away from the laboratories…"

I saw the flash of a smile as he turned back to look at me. "Not 'miles', Carl. Three-quarters of a mile, at most."

"But still," I argued, "I'd have to get up early to get to work, not to mention the fact that I'd have to be awake even earlier if I was going to attend Matins, and I wouldn't be able to go back to bed after the service, either."

"Dear me. I never had you down as a slug-a-bed, Carl," he said lightly. "But there is a simple way to get around the issue of Matins – just don't go."

"I can't not go to Matins!" I protested, horrified.

"Why not? I don't."

I swear he is the most obnoxious creature that ever plagued me. I said, "It's different. _You're_ different. And anyway, Cardinal Jinette would never permit it."

Gabriel put out a hand to bring me to a halt, and then he gestured towards a balcony. "After tonight, Jinette may be in the mood to permit all kinds of requests."

I gave him a troubled glance, but followed him through the French windows onto the balcony. The deep scarlet curtain brushed my face as I pushed past it, and I batted it away with my hand. My concentration was therefore not wholly on the man – the source, I assumed, of the infernal clamour for Cardinal Jinette - that stood in St Peter's Square between the encircling arms of the colonnade and before the obelisk

I moved away from the curtain and towards the edge of the balcony, and then I stopped in astonishment. In place of the man there was now a horse – tall and black, with sulphur-yellow eyes that glowed. I could see this quite clearly despite the distance between the balcony and the part of the square where he – it – stood.

My hands reached out involuntarily, groping for the balustrade. Instead I got Van Helsing, and so I gripped his forearm until he said gently, "Carl. Carl?"

"Oh! My apologies, Van Helsing. I've… I'm… Well. I'm rather at a loss, actually. What on earth is that? And is it human or animal?"

"That's what I would like to know, too," said another voice.

Gabriel continued to stare down at the howling creature below, but I turned out of respect. Gabriel had very little respect for my immediate master, perhaps because the Cardinal was also his immediate master, and the one who had saved him when first he'd been found, bloodied and confused, on the Vatican steps only two years ago.

"Your Eminence," I began, "this… horse seems to know you."

"Horse? It is a man," Jinette said.

I looked into the square and started in alarm. The black horse with the sulphur eyes had turned back into the form of a man. I could see it a little clearer now, and saw that it had black hair and very white skin, and that it was very tall and thin. As we watched, it raised its head, its gaze seemingly fastened on our balcony, and then it cried again: "Jinette!"

"It is calling your name!" I told the cardinal rather obviously.

He grimaced. "I imagine that all of Rome can hear its cries."

"What does it want?"

The cardinal shrugged. "I cannot think. The hour is late. Thought is never coherent at such times." He brushed his hand over his head, patting the thinning grey hair, and then he stopped, his expression slightly alarmed, when he realised that he'd neglected to put on his cardinal's cap.

Jinette harrumphed and put his hands together, huddling into the robes of white and red that he'd seemingly pulled on with as much haste as I'd done. His gaze switched from me to Van Helsing, who was now leaning over the balustrade as casually as if he were at an informal reception.

"What is it?" he demanded. "I ordered the Swiss Guards to stand back. They are not trained for the supernatural. And this… thing – it is supernatural, is it not?"

"Oh, yes. Most definitely supernatural." Gabriel rolled on his elbows so that he lounged with his back to the balustrade, facing the cardinal and I. "And I think I know what it is, too."

"You do?"

"Yep." Van Helsing examined his nails and then stared up at the front of the building at the lights that continued to flicker on at the windows of the palace.

I glanced up, too. It seemed as if every member of the Vatican was awake now, all of them thronging to see what was causing such a noise in St Peter's Square.

"Well?" Cardinal Jinette's temper snapped. "What the devil _is_ it?"

"Oh, it's not a devil," Van Helsing said. "It's a pooka."

"Pooka?" I repeated. "That doesn't sound too bad. Not scary at all. In fact, it sounds rather sweet and innocent. One might even say it sounded rather cuddly…"

I fell silent when I realised that both Gabriel and Cardinal Jinette were staring at me as if I had taken leave of my senses.

Then Gabriel grinned at me and shook his head. "Only you could say that with any conviction about a monster."

"Monster? It's not a monster." I pointed towards the figure in the square below us. "Granted, it seems to be a shape-shifter, and by the way it's calling for the cardinal I doubt it's here on some benevolent mission, but still, do we have to label every unfortunate spirit we come across as a 'monster'?"

"When it's a pooka, yes, we do," he replied. "Believe me, pookas can be vicious bas… uh, devils."

"You said it wasn't a devil," Jinette said swiftly.

"Figure of speech." Van Helsing seemed to be enjoying himself. "Anyway. You want to know why the pooka's here, why don't you ask it?"

Jinette looked appalled. "Enter into a dialogue with a demon?"

"Well, I wasn't suggesting that you have a conversation with it. Just a simple question would be enough. Or would you rather it came back night after night to shout your name at the Vatican walls? I doubt the Pope would take too kindly to the fact that the cardinal-in-chief of the Knights of the Holy Order is too afraid to answer the summons of a creature of the Fae."

I peered again at the pooka. It had shifted back into its equine form and was now trotting back and forth, its hooves striking sharp on the cobbles of St Peter's Square. "Fae?" I asked vaguely. "Are you saying that this is a fairy?"

Gabriel turned and edged closer to me, so that our arms touched. I felt the warmth and rubbed softness of his leather coat on my bare skin, but I did not pull away. Rather, I was aware that the night was cold, with a white halo around the moon, and so I instinctively shifted closer to him.

"It's a type of fairy," he said, his voice low. "A fairy from a very specific part of the world."

I was about to ask where the pooka came from, but I remained quiet as Cardinal Jinette seemingly came to a decision. He moved to the front of the balcony with great ceremony, as if he were the Pontiff himself. He smoothed down his disordered nightgown with the crimson cardinal's robe hastily pulled over the top, and summoned as much dignity as he could manage.

"Sad creature!" he called out. "I am Cardinal Jinette. What is your business?"

The pooka stopped in its tracks and turned its head up towards the balcony. It whinnied like a horse, but then spoke like a human: "Pelagius! Pelagius!"

The cardinal stepped back, crossing himself. "It is a heretic!"

Beside me, I felt rather than heard Gabriel's rumble of amusement.

"Your Eminence, how can it be a heretic when it is a fairy?" I asked, leaning around Van Helsing's body so I could address Jinette. "Surely fairies, as well as demons and monsters and other creatures of darkness, have no grasp of theological matters and are in any case removed from such discussions because of their very nature?"

I ended my sentence with a question because I was aware halfway through that I had no idea what the position of the Church was on fairies studying ancient heresies. I winced and waited for Cardinal Jinette to chastise me for being a fool. Instead, he fixed me with a terrible stare that made me shrink back behind Gabriel again.

Down below, the pooka was now tramping sideways, its hoofs beating a rhythm punctuated by its cries, which now alternated between 'Jinette' and 'Pelagius'.

In confusion I turned to Gabriel and whispered, "Do you think that it's accusing the cardinal of being a heretic?"

Van Helsing laughed at that. "No," he said, loud enough that Jinette could hear him, "the pooka has answered the question. His business is Pelagius – a Celtic monk, may I remind you…"

"I know that," I said sharply. "Just because I didn't live through all the heresies doesn't mean I'm not aware of them, Van Helsing."

He gave me a cheeky grin. "Okay. I'll remember that next time."

"And," I said with a sniff, "I suppose that the pooka is Celtic, too."

"Actually, yes, it is." Gabriel touched the peak of his hat to me in acknowledgment. "They're mainly found in Ireland, although there are accounts of them roaming elsewhere. I once met with one in Brittany. You know the worst thing about them?"

I was aware of Cardinal Jinette moving closer to hear what was said. "What?" I asked, dutifully.

Gabriel leaned close, as if imparting a great secret. "You can't kill 'em."

"What!"

This time it was Cardinal Jinette who grabbed onto Van Helsing's arm. He looked panicked, his gaze going from Gabriel's amused expression to the prancing pooka down in the square.

"You can't kill them?" he cried.

"Nope." Gabriel withdrew his arm, leaving Jinette nothing to cling to but the balustrade. "Best way to get rid of them is to give them what they're asking for."

"But Pelagius died over fourteen hundred years ago!" I protested.

"I don't think the pooka wants Pelagius himself," Van Helsing said softly, staring at Jinette. "Tell me, Your Eminence, where did you go last month?"

The cardinal, who had gone a little pale around the mouth, suddenly straightened his shoulders and looked very regal again. "I was away on Vatican business."

"Yeah, sure. But where did you go?"

Jinette gave him a hard stare. "Ireland. Dublin, in fact. To be absolutely specific, Trinity College."

"There it is, then." Gabriel waved a hand as if the mystery was solved. "You've angered the pooka by taking something that it was protecting. Something to do with Pelagius, apparently. The pooka is accusing you of theft."

Cardinal Jinette's expression darkened as he frowned together his beetling black brows. "I've taken nothing! I purchased several manuscripts from the college, that is true, but all were paid for in currency and exchange – I am not a thief!"

This last sentence he flung down at the pooka in defiance, shaking his fist at it.

"Jinette! Pelagius!" cried the creature again, and then it began to run around the obelisk that stood in the centre of the square.

At first it moved slowly, and then as it began to pick up speed, it started to create a vortex. Dead leaves and discarded pages of newspapers swirled in its wake, and after a moment I could feel the tug of the wind, scented with horseflesh, as it reached behind me to grab at the scarlet velvet curtains.

"What's it doing?" I asked.

"Getting annoyed," Gabriel answered. "If they don't get what they want, they start destroying things."

"And you can't catch it, or stop it?" Jinette demanded. "What kind of demon-hunter are you!"

"One who believes in a certain kind of morality," Gabriel said. "The Fae are not too bright. They'd lie to save their life, but they'd never be dishonest about being robbed. Whatever you brought back from Ireland, I think you need to find it. Otherwise, that pooka is capable of creating enough force to bring the whole of the colonnade crashing down."

* * *

Until I met Van Helsing, I knew of the world only from books. The Vatican Library redefines the word 'extensive'. There are smaller, secret libraries built within its walls, in the heights of towers, or in the deepest cellar. Not everyone has access to these libraries, and with good reason. Some of the books and manuscripts and papyri housed here were supposed to have been destroyed by the Inquisition, or by earlier pagan hordes.

It was hardly surprising that the cardinal in charge of the Vatican Secret Archives was Cardinal Jinette. He had snatched the key from the belt of his under-robe and charged me with locating and bringing to him the document that the pooka wanted. He refused to accompany me to this task, saying that it was his moral duty to stand watch. Quite what he was going to watch, apart from the pooka running in ever-decreasing circles, was beyond me, but I always obey orders.

Well, almost always.

I admit that I was rather pleased to be given the chance of entering one of the secret libraries. I'd been in one or two before, of course, properly supervised and all that, but I'd never found anything truly controversial. So the prospect of searching for a genuine heretical text, even though I didn't know what it looked like or what it was called, was actually quite exciting.

Van Helsing and I hurried through the corridors of the Vatican, down flights of stairs and across courtyards, and all the time we could still hear the sound of the pooka's cries. When we arrived in the little out-of-the-way corner that Cardinal Jinette had described, I examined the heavy iron door and found the legend inscribed upon it: _Serae Γ 561_.

I unlocked the door and stood aside as Gabriel dragged it open. The hinges squealed in protest, and even in the faint light I could see rust flaking from the metal.

"It doesn't look like it's been opened in years," I complained. "I hope Cardinal Jinette was right about this."

"Must take – three – Swiss Guards – to open – this damn thing," Van Helsing said between heaves and tugs at the heavy door. He puffed out his breath. "But yes, I'd say someone's been inside it fairly recently, judging by the amount of rust on the ground. They need to oil these damn hinges."

"Probably," I said, peeping around him again as I tried to see inside.

Eventually the door opened and we entered the room. Gabriel muttered something and then reached for the gaslights. Illumination brought further wonder.

The secret archive of Γ 561 was about five times wider than my monastic cell, and as long as the corridor outside it. Apart from five desks placed in a line closest to the cluster of gaslights that hung overhead, the remainder of the room was full of stacks, and each stack was overflowing with papers, maps, parchments, manuscripts, and codices.

"Dear me," I said as I raised my eyes to the ceiling, my mind trying to comprehend the sight before me, "however are we going to find it?"

"I don't suppose there's a catalogue," Van Helsing said.

"Hardly. Where would one begin?"

"How about with 'A'?"

I tutted. "Really, Van Helsing. That's not at all useful when the majority of texts are anonymous."

"Makes sense to me." He perched on the side of a desk and looked through the pile of books that had been placed upon it. "Why couldn't Jinette have put the new acquisitions somewhere obvious?"

"Because this is the Vatican," I said without a trace of irony.

"Yeah, that figures." He abandoned the pile of books and wandered around the room. He peered beneath the desks and even poked about in the rubbish baskets.

"It won't be in a waste paper bin," I said rather testily.

Gabriel straightened up and looked at me. "Won't it?"

"No! It's a priceless manuscript!"

He took off his hat and dropped it onto a desk. "I thought Jinette said he'd paid money for it. Can't be priceless if it had a price. And anyway, if this thing is really by Pelagius, then it'd stand to reason that it'd end up in the bin… or worse."

"We do not destroy books," I said, primly.

"Not even heretical books?"

"Not even them. It would be a bit silly for us to do that, surely. Makes more sense for us to keep the books so we know what we're up against."

Van Helsing smirked. "Yeah. Like you never destroyed all those tomes on demonology."

"_I_ didn't do that."

"Not you personally, no. But you have to admit that they'd come in useful today more than a bunch of heretical fifth century tracts."

I sniffed. "We all make mistakes. And anyway, I happen to believe that fifth century heresies have as much validity today as they did fourteen hundred years ago. Especially the Pelagian heresy. It's very interesting."

"I wouldn't know," he said laconically. "I was busy with the Donatists."

"The…" I looked up and stared at him. "The Donatists? But – but…"

He winked. "Believe me, Carl, the Donatists were far more dangerous than Pelagius. For a start, they meant business. Pelagius had a good heart and a big mouth, but no political agenda."

"Honestly, Van Helsing, I would say that heresy is theological rather than political," I said, picking a row of stacks in which to begin my search. "And after all that business with Diocletian, I'm not surprised that the African Church felt the need for a little schism."

"'A little schism'?" Gabriel snorted. "Better not let Jinette hear you talking like that."

I manoeuvred a small wooden ladder into position against the stack, and then tucked my cassock tight around my knees before I clambered up. "Can we just concentrate on the matter at hand, please?"

"Sure."

We worked in silence for a while, until curiosity got the better of me. I slid down the ladder and moved it to the next stack. I paused halfway up climbing to the top shelf and rested my chin on the wooden step. I leaned forwards to look over the row of books into the next aisle, where Van Helsing sat.

"How did you know the Donatists?"

"I don't remember. It's like most of my memories – vague and insubstantial. But I know I was there. You know when you're trying to recall something, and it's on the tip of your tongue, and the more you try to remember it, the more it slips away? That's what it's like."

He clumped together a handful of books and replaced them on the shelf before he continued, "You can say something to me that'll spark a memory, and I'll get it all: vision, scent, sound, taste, touch… and then when I try to grab hold of it, it disappears."

"So you don't remember what you did to the Donatists."

His expression was blank when he turned towards me. "I don't think I did anything to them. Angels are only supposed to offer guidance. They don't get directly involved. At least, they're not supposed to do that."

"But you did, I suppose."

"I don't remember." His voice was haunted.

"Really, Van Helsing." I sifted through a pile of loose-leaf papers, sorting it by size rather than by content, and then I let the pages fall to the shelf in disorder. "The least you could do is to remember the thing that made you into a man rather than an angel. I'm sure I would recollect such an event. It must have been of earth-shattering importance."

"Actually," he said, frowning, "I don't believe that it was."

He got up and walked around the room, passing through the stacks seemingly at random. As he went, he reached out and ran his fingers along the spines of the books, or riffled through the papers.

"The thing that caused my Fall was probably the same thing that caused Lucifer's Fall," Gabriel said as he finally came to a halt opposite a selection of books bound in white calfskin.

"Pride?" I guessed.

"No," he said. "Free will."

He seized one of the books and then pushed his hand into the empty space between its shelf-mates. Moments later he withdrew his fingers. Clutched between his thumb and forefinger was a slim volume bound in worn leather.

Van Helsing looked at it, and then he replaced the calfskin book and brought the leather-bound volume around to me.

"Pelagius. _De libero arbitrio,_" he said with a wry smile. "_On Free Will_."

* * *

We left the library in a much messier state than we'd found it, and we progressed back through the winding corridors and expansive halls, up marble stairs and behind tapestries that concealed secret entrances. Finally, I pushed back the scarlet velvet curtain and emerged onto the balcony once again.

It was quiet out there. On our way back to the cardinal, I hadn't noticed that the pooka had fallen silent. Perhaps it knew that I had brought the thing that it sought.

Cardinal Jinette turned towards me. His face was pasty and he looked weary. He still held with one hand onto the balustrade, as if it were the only thing to keep him upright. He stared at me, at the object I held.

"Do you have it?"

I nodded. In my hands I clutched the book, an eighth century Irish copy of Pelagius' essay on free will. I didn't need to read it to know what it contained. St Augustine and St Jerome had been quite eloquent in their condemnation of the British monk, and their words were like the reverse of a lanternslide. One could deduce what was said by the first text by what was not said in later criticisms.

Van Helsing followed me onto the balcony. His attention was not taken by heretical texts, and so he saw the destruction first.

"Well, now," was what he said.

I held the book tighter as I stared out at St Peter's Square. The pooka, now in the shape of a man, was standing motionless to the right of where the obelisk had once stood. Even in the greying half-light of the approaching dawn I could see that the cobbles had been burnished to a glossy shine within the circle of the vortex created by the pooka. Towards the centre of this circle, the cobbles had shattered and twisted as if the earth had heaved itself up. It had been this motion that must have toppled the obelisk.

The obelisk itself, a mighty monument to a pagan emperor moved to St Peter's Square by an even mightier prince of the Church, now lay on its side. It was a great heavy thing, made I think of granite, and I half-expected it to have broken as it fell. I thought I could see faint cracks along its side, but my attention was on the smashed cobbles beneath its length.

And the pooka.

The creature stirred as I approached the front of the balcony and held up the leather-bound volume. It half-turned into a horse, its head becoming equine even as it started to run towards me on human feet.

"Pelagius!" it cried, and I swear I heard joy in its voice as it called out again: "Pelagius!"

"Here it is!" I waved the book at it, but then my arm was jerked back. I turned in confusion to see Cardinal Jinette staring at me with fury in his gaze.

"What are you doing, Carlo!"

"But, Your Eminence – the pooka… You told me to fetch Pelagius."

"I did. But I do not intend to give it to some babbling half-wit demon!" the cardinal snapped. "Are you insane? This is the only copy extant – the only copy in the entire world of this text! It is priceless!"

"Yet you paid for it," Van Helsing said lightly.

"Silence!" Jinette tugged at my sleeve, reaching out to take the book from me. "Come, now, Carlo. Give me the book."

"But why did you want me to bring it here if you had no intention of giving it to the pooka?" I wanted to know. "It seems rather unfair."

"Can't you see what it's done?" Cardinal Jinette gestured at the collapsed obelisk and the broken cobbles. "It has power! It could destroy the colonnade – Bernini's magnificent colonnade, ah! But the moment you must have reached the library, it stopped and waited, just as I thought it would do."

"But…" I began again, looking from Jinette to Gabriel, "I thought that you couldn't kill a pooka."

"You can't," Van Helsing confirmed.

"No. But you could capture it." Jinette's smile was like a shark's.

"So this is just bait," I said, looking at the book I still held outstretched over the balcony.

Cardinal Jinette almost purred. "Yes."

Behind me, Van Helsing sighed. "You know, it's a _really_ bad idea to annoy a pooka."

Below me, the pooka was gazing up in rapture, whickering with excitement as its human arms reached up to catch the book. It had stopped saying Jinette's name, and instead it repeated "Pelagius!" over and over.

"I think you should give back the book," I said with a determination I did not feel. "I don't believe this creature to be evil. Not like the evil we usually face. I mean, it's even a literary type of demon if it protects ancient manuscripts…"

Jinette stared at me. "That is the only surviving text on an important heresy!"

"Yes," I said. "But it will continue to survive if I give it back to the pooka, won't it? The pooka will protect it. The same can't be said if the book remains here. Who knows what might become of it. Doesn't bear thinking about."

"Nothing will happen to it, Carl. The text will be studied and catalogued…"

"And lost for all time, buried underneath a pile of other ancient texts that nobody will ever see!" I cried. "At least the pooka loves this text – yes, it loves Pelagius even if it can't read! It came here from Ireland to fetch its book. Even you must agree that it is a devoted kind of demon."

Cardinal Jinette muttered, and then made a grab for the book.

I skipped away and leaned a little further out over the balcony. "And even if the pooka can't read," I continued, "it came to protect its book, even though it must have known it would be putting itself in danger by coming here."

"It's a stupid sort of demon, Van Helsing said so," Jinette scowled. "It wouldn't be able to conceive of danger."

"They're not that stupid," Gabriel interrupted. "All creatures, good or evil, know when they're in danger. The pooka is no exception."

Jinette rounded on him. "Who asked you to speak!"

"Your Eminence!" I flapped the book to get his attention. "The pooka came here of its own free will. And that is what Pelagius was teaching in this text – the ability of man to make mistakes and learn…"

"That was St Augustine."

"And to be rewarded," I continued. "Pelagius said 'the Lord of Justice wished man to be free to act and not under compulsion' – and, Your Eminence, I agree with him. Perhaps that makes me a heretic, too: I do not know. But what I do know is this…"

I dropped the book.

Jinette stood frozen for a moment, and then he almost launched himself from the balcony after it. "No!" he shouted.

Gabriel hauled him back by his cardinal's sash. "Let it go, Jinette. It was never yours in the first place."

"It belonged to the Vatican!"

"It was created outside of it. Let it stay there. Pelagius will hardly rise again."

Cardinal Jinette hung over the balustrade and then said to me, "You should not have done that, Carlo. You should not have done that."

I couldn't find it in my heart to apologise.

We watched the book fall. Its cover opened, its pages fluttered. Then the pooka leapt up into the air and seized it, clasping the leather-bound volume to its chest. It whinnied in delight, and then it vanished into thin air, Pelagius and all.

Just before it went, I could have sworn that I heard it say: _Thank you, Carl._ But I might have been imagining it.

After all, it had been one of those nights when you rather wish you'd imagined the whole thing.


End file.
